It was 1997, my album Transplanting was just finished, soon to be released. I was in Atlanta, GA with Pete Droge & the Sinners working on Pete’s 3rd major label record, Spacey & Shakin. We would record all day, play a few games of poker afterwards and about midnight head back to our apartments. Usually we would hit the grocery store for food on the way home.

Pete and I walk into Harris Teeter, an upsale grocery store in Atlanta when we suddenly froze in our tracks! A song is blasting over the PA in the near empty store, my song, from a record that isn’t even out yet, that we just finished recording on Vashon Island not a week earlier! What the hell?

We run over to the checkout person and say “where is this music coming from”? She looked completely unaware of the music. We said “is this music on a radio or what”? She shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” We were thinking that the other band mates had gotten to the store before us and they were playing a trick on us. We also thought, maybe we were on Candid Camera.

But none of that was true. What was true was that the label I was on, Loosegroove, had sent my record to DMX, or AEI, one of those music environment companies who make playlists for stores, shops and restaurants. They had added my song(s) to their playlist and it was just pure luck that we walked in while my song was playing.

To top it all off, we heard another one of my songs the next night. All in all we heard my music three out of four times we were in the store. I didn’t care if the record would ever become a success after that, I thought that this was the coolest thing ever!